in your dreams, you are jealous of tragedies; and the truth is, we all want our own tragedy, because life is pale without it. we want the teeth, the screaming, the survival that comes with it
Together, Bondike and I stand on a beach. We are alone, and the last light tips over the horizon. The sea does not sing; does not lull; does not make sound. On the far peripheral billow the silk sails of dream-ships, woven from a thousand incomprehensible colors. Bondike speaks to me, but those words, too, seem incomprehensible:
“You have no right,” he says.
“No right to what?”
“No right to—to take him from me, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s gone.” Bondike says, and I do not know who he means; staring through this veil of dreams, I begin to believe I know.
“He had to leave,” I answer, softly. I mean to comfort him.
Even in the dream it tastes like a lie.
“You can’t stand it,” he says. “You can’t stand that I was almost happy. That I almost—almost, somehow—moved past you.”
And Bondike turns and walks down the beach—not toward the billowing sails of the docks, Denocte’s docks, but toward the untamed stretch of shore beyond. He walks, and walks, and walks and I watch until he dissolves into the sea.
- - - -
I know she left. I feel, with certainty, her absence. I know she left, and I know, too, she left because of me. The battle with Amaroq on the beach has remained with me.
You are only a ghost to her, he had told me. But he had not fulfilled his other promise. I had not become a corpse to him and this, still, feels me with a cool pleasure. I should not consider the sentiment such, the way it settles in my veins.
But I do.
Because, no matter which way I regard my own sentiments, they emerge as pleasure. I took pleasure in his death.
And yet, I still feel a ghost. More now than ever, as I roam the streets of Denocte not as one who belongs, but as one who drifts. I do not feel myself; and perhaps it is because, by every alleyway and through every tavern window, I believe I glimpse Boudika. I believe I see her, painted gold, with ribbons in her hair. A warrior turned dancer. A woman, hidden. A lie, a lie, a lie.
The night has become dark by the time I reach the Court’s docks. The sound, even now, sends apprehension tingling down my spine. The squelching of water and wood; the rut of boats against the docks; the rise and fall of the surf. Somewhere, far off, I hear a creature surface from the depths and then return in one abrupt splash.
I think I am alone, but as I walk to the very end I see a silhouette and, I ask, “Have you seen a woman with a white face and curled horns? She is red, and black, and stripped at the haunches.”
Almost as an afterthought, I add: “She had been the Champion of Community here, once.”
❖ Night guide you, lad — past those sorrow fields & sombre marshes — to a kinder end.
D
enocte by night is a sight to behold, a wonder glimmering in the deep dark. Her song the raucous laughter of her denizens, full and freer than birds on raven coloured wing. Through cobblestone streets they dance, and skitter and slink. Maids draped liberally in foreign fabrics glistening under pale moonlight, mercenaries cloaked in weathered leather, nicked and scarred. Vials of strangely glowing potions strapped to their belts, smelling strongly of mint and other more obscure scents.
Speaking in hushed whispers, glancing this way and that, eyes all the colours of the deep earths dearest treasures. A constant source of motion, a world within shadow, one cannot truly comprehend the depth until they drink deep of ink dark waters. So many souls, twinkling in a humble reconstruction of the stars overhead.
Down by the docks, Renwick makes conversation with the sailors and thieves both. Jovial, their faces made less harsh by flames dancing within iron wrought braziers. Down here there is only the smell of brine and salt water, occasionally winds bring them the smell of good ale & other delectables he imagines are imported from far off places — or homebrewed specialities peddled for adequate coin. Only occasionally, though, but it's powerful enough that even a most iron stomach wavers uneasily. Brine and sweet fruits aren't the most mouth watering blend, he's sure they don't go down a treat either.
Have you seen a woman.
Ah, gold eyes glint with a telltale light. All at once, Renwick's & three other pairs of eyes flick to settle on their newest guest. For a moment silence reigns, until his temporary companions disperse, one last glance spared between the horned stranger and the knight, their hooves clunk and fade heavily on water logged and barnacle covered wood. Until it's just them, illuminated by fire, entertained by waves crashing against wood and stone.
Have you seen a woman, with moonlight in her hair? A visage of smoke across water, touched by shadow at her edges.
Part of him wants to play along, he's in a good mood. Wolf-kind and fullbodied, a shot of absinthe chased by bourbon. Or the good kind of beer the lords only ever call for on the most grandiose of self-proclaiming occasions. This man is a stranger to him, coming from whatever beaten path life has decided to take him on to their humble slice of eden obscura. Looking for a ghost, a figment of a woman in a visage of red. You would have more luck searching for a grave than anything tangible here.
Denoctian's who don't want to be found, never will be. Spectres in the night, wisps on the moors before dawn.
It would be kinder to tell him to kill this little starling in it's nest, wing too broken to mend.
"Alas," He starts, mulling over his words with a precise kind of care. His urge to be cruel in his amusement flickers and finds stability. Campfire instead of a spark. "that seat has long grown cold, I'm sorry lad." Between them silence settles in comforting drapes, Renwick is content with it. Long stretches of silence filled the ramparts of the Brotherhoods ancient and crumbling castle, hewn from mountain rock, blood and sweat. He can go hours without saying a word.
Content until he's not.
He is a man whose as sociable as the sun burns bright, and a man who suddenly remembers that he has a great yawning dislike for silences that do not always have to exist between bodies.
Renwick props a cloven hoof on the very tip of it's midas point, leans a little more toward the brazier's warmth while the sea air nips cruelly at his haunches. Lamenting collections of better yesterdays isn't his usual cup, even if he sips from it often, but it's better than nothing. "Was she special to you?"
though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now the strength which in old days moved heaven and earth, that which we are, we are
I do not belong here, by the sea beneath Denocte’s lamplight. I do not belong beneath these glittering stars, where the wind whispers through a forest of masts and the sea sings her lullaby. I do not know when, or where, I was told a land like this will never love you, but the words return to me as the stranger turns. He regards me with eyes that are too-gold against the dark of his face; in the flickering lamplight and beneath the glittering stars, they seem leonine, predatory.
I do not belong here, spoken of by sailors and strangers. I do not belong beneath this gaze of Midas, and my lack of belonging fills me with an almost-rage. I have never been one to succumb to discomfort; but to smile at it, just as leonine, just as languid. A mirror as the silence suppresses me; as it urges me to turn and leave from their jovial conversation, the one I interrupted. But I do not; I do not, and I know my presence cannot be ignored.
The sailors leave, and we are alone.
Perhaps the lamplight, the starlight, the whispering docks—perhaps all these things combined suggest a veil of intimacy. The lively song of Denocte seems distant in the quiet of this dark alcove. The stranger waits to answer until the silence belongs to him.
An old trick, I think, that I once used and did not think to employ here, chasing a ghost that does not wish to be found. Alas, that seat has long grown cold. I’m sorry lad.
My lips twitch; an almost smile that could just as quickly become a sneer. There, then gone. Lad implies youthfulness; and as I measure him unabashedly with my eyes, I discern we cannot be far apart in age. And so I do smile into that silence, and wait for it to become mine, noncommittal—
I say, “Would you like to warm it, then?” just as he adds, “Was she special to you?”
Our voices contend; then break apart. I wait to see if he will answer first, but decide to oblige his curiosity.
“No,” I say the same old lie with the belief of a prayer. “But ghosts have a way of haunting you, even once you no longer long for them to be real.”
I know this, at least, is truth. Because I seek an individual who never existed in the capacity I wished they had; this realization, no matter how many times it dawns on me, fills me with bitterness. A younger version of myself would add, uncouthly and with caustic humor, that no one was special to me.
But I think of Adonai, then; I think of Adonai, and Dagda, and ever man I had ever put my name into their heart only to watch the way it bled. Only to feel, for a moment, immortal.
I walk past him, then; further down the dock, to gaze out at the end toward the sea. Beyond the ships; beyond the sailors. I do not glance over my shoulder when I add, “And how occupied are the seats around your heart, lad?” A flick of an ear; an over-the-shoulder glance, that ends in a flash of humor, visible only in the sea of my eyes.
❖ Night guide you, lad — past those sorrow fields & sombre marshes — to a kinder end.
T
he oldest trick in the book, timeless in it's usage, versatile and easily applied. Glittering darkly on an apocatheries wall, brightly against soft satin pillows and sombrely somewhere between seasmoke & melancholic window views.
Renwick is a man of reasons, and seldom are they truly wicked by design. He's been raised better than that, his spear tipped pride abhors such carelesss, lackadaisical usage as a means to pass the time. Infliction for the basest kind of satisfaction. This temple of smoke, shadows and starlight — you protect your own, first. For they are family, even if you never spared more than a cursory glance of greeting. Denocte is a big and beautiful place, you can spend your life dancing and never meet everyone else dancing in that very same floor.
However — to focus on his more noble traits and it would be just the smallest sin, for it'd deny that his silence comes in a trickster's guise. For Renwick is to some degree, toying with this handsome stranger as a means to pass the time, while fulfilling his solemn duty to his court.
Time, and it's yawning expanse, has become something of an endless toil. It pays to inject some levity, where you can get it.
Just like in the jousts, and cobblestone arena's nestled within crumbling fortress walls, their words collide.
Would you like to warm it, then — was she special to you.
The stranger beheads his question in such an artless fashion it could be considered a master stroke. Neatly bisecting any residual wonder of this supposed spectre's importance to the gilded man, her meaning to bring him so far down into Denocte's shadowy embrace.
Renwick's amusement is a palpable, immediate thing. The curl of his mouth takes on a new edge, fox sly. Reminiscent of statues in forgotten temples, odes to minor gods whose foolery and trickery reflect in their eternal guardians clever smiles. Gemstones eyes snapping wildfire, hot and cold.
It remains even after the man provides him with an achingly familiar response. Rippling out in internal waters, larger and more potent than any stone could produce. "That they do." He says, more to himself than the other. "That they do."
But the nature of a ghost is to persist, long after their bones grow cold. Far beyond when pieces of them crumble to ash and dust, taking with them all the rose tinted memories and expectations you hoped to achieve and never got. Wine turns sour in the mouth, while the reflection in the mirror can only muster up an indifferent glance. Judging and dismissing you without pause.
Of course, you can attempt to exorcise the ghost once and for all. Once they've overstayed their welcome. Turning sunday self-flagellation into an overworked, mundane chore that you begrudgingly toil at because you have exactly zero other outlets. The dark romantic repentence you were hoping it would remain, imposing upon your senses a world that is beautifully sad, sadly beautiful slipping between cracks and fissures. No, it robs it of that kind of luster and makes it grey. Terrible, obtrusive grey. An affront to the senses, when it has no strict right to be. It's grey, after all.
But then the stranger in the tattered cloak will come to you at wolf hour, and ask you if you want to commit to the purge. After they leave you, it reminds, crooked mouth pulled into an approximation of a rictus grin. That in it's absence a void will take it's spot, and voids are prone to fester in often unexpected ways. Full of teeth, grime and snarling contempt.
Is it better to house the devil you know, or the unknown beyond the dark corridor?
Renwick watches him go, further down the dock where he knows the planks grow rickety and unsecure. Where the lantern chains creak against iron links. Molten eyes curious and intrigued. Stranger things have happened, but this seems to be the latest oddity to land at his door.
There will be no more sailors and vagabonds like to come this way again tonight. Rendering the docks a graveyard of ships and passing marine life, their bodies dark shapes breaking moonlit waters only to disappear again.
And how occupied are the seats around your heart, lad?
"Woefully vacant, exceptionally pricey and entirely worth their price point." He retorts with a laugh. His spot by the brazier becomes cold, as the knight meanders after the stranger. Who to his quiet dismay, clearly has a hand on him or more. Rarely is he considered the shorter party to any event, long legged as he is. Denocte is a Realm of strange happenings, and her sea shore is equally prone to unusual turns. No surprise that in this meeting point of two unpredictabilities, there's a knight and a vagabond conversing slyly between themselves.
When he stops again, it's by the man's side. Unapologetically inviting himself into his space, as if he's bought and paid for the right already. It is his home, he would say, if he was challenged on it. He has a right to slot himself where ever he likes.
"Why, interested in procuring one, sir?" Corner of his mouth tick further upward. Clearly delighted by both the brazen usage of his own term wielded back upon him, and the proposition in the first place.
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